Experts to debate new trends in architecture

on Thursday,March 19,2009 21:03

Distinguished architects and theorists will be discussing the shifting boundaries between the virtual and the physical worlds during an upcoming event hosted by the Southern California Institute of Architecture.

The spring 2009 MediaSCAPES symposium will take place on March 28 and bring together experts in the field, including Benjamin Bratton, Jean Michel Crettaz, Manuel DeLanda, Ed Keller and JoAnn Kuchera-Morin.

The panelists will present their work and discuss the practice of immersive and virtual architecture, which includes animation and 3D technologies as well as digital environments.

Among other topics explored during the event will be the convergence of the material and the virtual within contemporary architecture.

"As we enter the 21st Century, witnessing the intersection of the virtual and material, one must think of the continuum between solid objects as condensed vibration that can free these structures into new forms," says JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, professor of composition and director of the Center for Research in Electronic Art Technology at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

"The virtual offers a path to liberation of the material, an avenue that will eventually lead to buildings that will change their shape over time according to their function," she adds.

MediaSCAPES post-graduate program is a cross disciplinary platform for the creative engagement and the development of critical responses to shifting technological and cultural paradigms.